Thanks to the Criterion Collection’s YouTube page, we now have access to a moment when Rust Cohle and a career comeback were not even a glimmer in Matthew McConaughey’s eye. Unless, you know, time is a flat circle. Then I guess they were always there.

Criterion has released McConaughey’s original audition tape from his first movie: Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused. The iconic “alright, alright, alright” came later, but we do get to hear his thoughts on high school girls.